Tomorrow Brings Them True
by hauntedlittledoll
Summary: Title taken from Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games."  Sequel to "Created the Monster."  The Winchesters just are not the type of people to put sentiment into words.


"Dad?" Ben asked quietly, pausing right behind Dean. The older man was standing poised in front of Bobby's bookshelf, brow furrowed and hand raised as if he was about to take down a book and had forgotten which one. "Looking for werewolves?"

Castiel would be back tomorrow, one werewolf bagged, but Dean occasionally researched even the easy stuff. Ben was tempted to sidetrack the man, work his father back into the kitchen where Claire was flapping about, trying to make a cake, and Bobby was carefully supervising while Jesse cracked jokes from his seat on the counter. It'd be nice to have Dean in there too taking part.

Dean shook his head slowly. Then he grabbed a tome that boasted to list all the names of all the powerful demons. Bobby regularly mocked it, but it was the first source he turned to when Castiel came home with stories of black eyes and large body counts. Turning back, Dean frowned at Ben as if seeing him for the first time in a while.

Ben flushed under the scrutiny.

"Ben!" Jesse howled from the kitchen. "Get in here and make Claire let me lick the spoon . . . and the bowl and maybe the mixer . . ."

Ben winced. His foster-brother was just gross most of the time. "Get a grip, cheese-brain!" he shouted back, looking away from Dean.

"It's not cheese; it's chocolate," Jesse wailed pathetically, "and she's withholding it."

There was a noise like a wooden spoon covered in cake-batter colliding with the back of a super-powered teenager's head. "It's not your birthday cake, Jesse; it's Ben's!"

Dean frowned, and Ben cringed under that serious gaze. "Yeah, so it's kinda my birthday . . . don't worry about forgetting it," Ben continued, filling-in his one-sided conversation, "because Cas forgot too."

That got him a pointed look, but Ben wasn't going to be made to feel guilty. Castiel had forgotten, or he would not have gone hunting this weekend. Then Dean pointed past Ben out the window, where unbelievably, the Impala was coming up the drive . . .

His siblings screamed as they heard the car and raced outside to greet the former angel while Bobby took over in the kitchen, grumbling about "idjit kids." Ben stood stock still in stupefied surprise while Dean gloated silently.

Had they all . . . were they all in on it? Jesse couldn't keep a secret to save his life, and they'd still managed to put one over on him? What about the silver bullets? And . . . and . . . the research?

Maybe not Dean, who had gone quiet again while studying Ben. Dean just knew Castiel really well. And maybe Ben too. The man rested one hand on the boy's shoulder and tilted his head in an unconscious imitation of Castiel. It took Ben a minute to translate the look.

"Oh, how old? Sixteen." Ben grinned.

Dean's gaze got far away, and Ben was just about ready to call the moment over when Dean reached into his pocket and dumped the contents into Ben's hand.

Keys. The keys to the Impala were sitting in Ben's hand. One of the first things that Sam had done five years ago had been to make a copy for Castiel, which the former angel still carried. And Sam had been burned with his set. These were Dean's own keys that the hunter had never stopped carrying even though he didn't drive anymore.

You could have knocked Ben over with a feather. Or a hair ruffle, as Dean found when Ben tripped over his own two feet and landed on his butt on the floor. Dean laughed, and Ben stared. "Are you sure?"

Dean rolled his eyes, hefted the book, and ruffled his hair again.

"Ben?" Castiel called from the other room, where it was taking three people to contain whatever present merited the entire con. Nothing could top Dean's present though. Nothing.

"I'm . . . I'm coming, Cas," Ben called back.

Dean smirked, and raised a finger to his lips with a nod at the keys.

"Our little secret," Ben agreed hurriedly, shoving the keys into his pocket. "I won't tell Cas."

With that promise exchanged, the moment was definitely over and Dean walked away with his book. Ben took a deep breath, and prepared to be wowed by whatever was waiting for him in the entryway. And maybe for an apologetic hug—girly as it may be—for doubting Castiel.

His birthday? Rocked.


End file.
